On Thursday, a federal judge sentenced a former Crown Point woman to seven years in prison after she admitted posing as a psychologist and bilking Medicaid and Medicare out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In April, 63-year-old Christine L. Reese, a.k.a. Christine Lang pleaded guilty to Medicaid fraud and aggravated identity theft.
One client wrote, “She saw me as a valuable dollar sign,” in a letter which was read during the 2.5-hour hearing.
Reese successfully was able to enroll in Sanctuary Counseling as an Indiana Medicaid Provider. During a period beginning in November 2021 and ending in January 2023, Reese, through Sanctuary Counseling, submitted about 506 claims for reimbursement to Indiana Medicaid for approximately 18 individual Medicaid recipients.
In court filings, Reese “caused an intended loss of over $457,000 and actually received over $247,000,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Wolff wrote.
Lang forged documents with real people’s licensing numbers while trying to get jobs. While posing as a psychologist, Reese allegedly wrote a letter of support for one client trying to get a gun and weighed in on another client’s custody battle.
She “defrauded vulnerable people out of mental health treatment,” Wolff said.
He showed a picture from the Harvey Public Library in May 2023, where she was speaking as an apparent psychologist at a mental health forum.
Christine Reese was charged Aug. 23, 2023, after an FBI raid on her Crown Point home produced evidence confirming she used others’ identities to obtain a job as a licensed clinical psychologist — she is not one — with Mid-America Counseling Services
